A very funny meme targeting the energy transition and the authoritarians pushing it circulated across social media over the Christmas weekend. The meme features a young woman with European features who one could easily imagine chairing a propaganda session at the just-concluded COP28 or next month’s annual World Economic Forum conference, holding out her hands as if to ward off an assault and saying, “Calm down. We’re only doing fascism until we solve climate change.”
Unfortunately, as is the case with any good parody humor, the meme is only funny because it is so tellingly accurate. To see how accurate it really is, all one must do is pay attention to what the energy transition movement’s most prominent advocates say in their public pronouncements.
Take Biden Climate Envoy John Kerry as a prime example. As I pointed out in a recent piece here, Mr. Kerry was neither elected nor formally confirmed by the U.S. Senate to his ornamental position, and thus has no real authority to commit the United States to any international agreement. Yet, during COP28, Kerry announced he had committed the US government to become a signatory to a multi-national deal to ban unabated coal-fired power plants. That’s an authoritarian edict, plain and simple.
Alex Epstein, author the book “Fossil Future,” took it further, referring to Kerry as a “fascist” in an interview with SkyNews. “This guy’s a fascist,” Epstein said. “He’s basically saying, ‘I should have total control over the economy. So, if I don’t like coal plants, I get to shut down coal plants.’ That itself is terrifying, that on climate grounds, you can just shut down any industry you want.”
He isn’t wrong – it is terrifying, especially when, as Epstein further points out, Kerry and other disciples of climate alarmism are working to tear down reliable, baseload, 24/7 coal plants at the same time they are working to overload the power grid with millions more electric vehicles and millions new all-electric homes. The net result is grid managers all over the country now warning of mounting grid reliability issues as they run dangerously short of baseload generation capacity.
Take Biden Climate Envoy John Kerry as a prime example. As I pointed out in a recent piece here, Mr. Kerry was neither elected nor formally confirmed by the U.S. Senate to his ornamental position, and thus has no real authority to commit the United States to any international agreement. Yet, during COP28, Kerry announced he had committed the US government to become a signatory to a multi-national deal to ban unabated coal-fired power plants. That’s an authoritarian edict, plain and simple.
Alex Epstein, author the book “Fossil Future,” took it further, referring to Kerry as a “fascist” in an interview with SkyNews. “This guy’s a fascist,” Epstein said. “He’s basically saying, ‘I should have total control over the economy. So, if I don’t like coal plants, I get to shut down coal plants.’ That itself is terrifying, that on climate grounds, you can just shut down any industry you want.”
He isn’t wrong – it is terrifying, especially when, as Epstein further points out, Kerry and other disciples of climate alarmism are working to tear down reliable, baseload, 24/7 coal plants at the same time they are working to overload the power grid with millions more electric vehicles and millions new all-electric homes. The net result is grid managers all over the country now warning of mounting grid reliability issues as they run dangerously short of baseload generation capacity.
So, basically, Gates is saying that renewables and EVs – the chosen rent-seeking technologies of this energy transition – must “outcompete fossil fuels,” but in his next breath he states that the playing field must be wildly tilted by government so that no real competition takes place. In Gates’s view, that would be achieved through a steadily-rising carbon tax that would ostensibly be levied on fossil fuels, but which we all know by now would ultimately be borne by ordinary citizens in the form of rapidly rising costs for all forms of energy. There is no mystery here, and this is authoritarianism in a nutshell.
Bill Gates: We have to outcompete fossil fuels. Now, to do that properly, they shouldn’t get subsidies and in fact carbon tax over time should be put on, so the new, say the electric car, or the plane use hydrogen, the fact that it doesn’t emit carbon you’re helping it get… pic.twitter.com/s2V52PcsNP
— Camus (@newstart_2024) December 23, 2023
Then, of course, there is Al Gore. Gore was given a shamelessly softball interview setup by CNN host Jake Tapper Sunday. Tapper, who appeared to be reading from a script, obligingly set up Gore to recite his favorite alarmist talking points on climate change and what he believes must be done.
“Well, we still have the ability to seize control of our destiny,” Gore told Tapper. “We can do this if we just overcome the greed and political power of the big fossil fuel polluters who’ve been trying to control this process. We need to break through this blockade that the big oil companies and petrostates have been using to block progress.” Honestly, what world does this man live in?
Authoritarians are truly on the march, but don’t worry, folks, they’ll stop assaulting your freedoms just as soon as they fix climate change. If you can’t trust Al Gore, Bill Gates, and John Kerry, well, who can you trust?
David Blackmon is an energy writer and consultant based in Texas. He spent 40 years in the oil and gas business, where he specialized in public policy and communications.
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